


Out of the black

by Mortifer_jpg (Mere_Mortifer)



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Or Does He??, POV Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Break, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Prequel, Sentient Infinity Stones (Marvel), Stream of Consciousness, Tony Stark Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26704654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mere_Mortifer/pseuds/Mortifer_jpg
Summary: It would have been only fair, at the very least, to return Mr. Stark the favor and let him die in Peter’s arms.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	Out of the black

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toucanpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toucanpie/gifts).



> Just a little ficlet about Peter's thoughts right after Tony's death

His hand slips away from Mr. Stark's shoulder. The armor, what's left of it, burns cold to the touch—Peter feels it on his fingertips behind the numbness fogging his mind. 

Peter focuses on that, on anything else 

_(the bruises blooming over his body the ache behind his eyes the sounds of a battle dying down somewhere far, far away from now)_

that is not the blank look in Mr. Stark's eyes. It's unnerving beyond reason, the film of nothing covering them—it makes his skin crawl, and that just feeds back into the loop of awfulness crashing over him.

This can't be happening. Miss Potts is kissing Mr. Stark’s temple and whispering something private between the tears, resigned to reality, and this still can’t be happening. 

They were supposed to win. What kind of victory is this? Who for?

It would have been only fair, at the very least, to return Mr. Stark the favour and let him die in Peter’s arms—not alone, staring at the barren landscape he just helped save, maybe even not _knowing_ if he did it. 

Peter tried to tell him. He tried so hard, did Mr. Stark hear? Were Peter’s words his last memory, like his were for Peter—five years ago, now, or so he’s been told. He wonders how transparent he was in those last moments, if falling in Mr. Stark’s embrace because he couldn’t bear to die anywhere else was too obvious even for his pathetic standards. 

Not that he was any better, today. The first thing Peter thought as soon as the Iron Man helmet retracted to show his face, was that the grey in Mr. Stark's hair looked unfairly good. It feels so juvenile, now, his silly little crush on someone shining too bright to even notice Peter stare up at them.

The universe at stake around him, and seeing Mr. Stark’s eyes again was enough to make everything worth it for a second. 

Peter’s not looking at his eyes now. 

He can't. He won't. Someone is going to try and tug him away from where he collapsed on the ground any second now, he can feel his senses tingling in the back of his mind as a warning, but a few more minutes on an alien planet seem much less monumental when it's _so_ important to figure out _what_ he's supposed to look at right now. If not Mr. Stark's eyes, if not the mangled remains of his arm, then what? What's left? 

How does he fix this?

His gaze slides down to the gauntlet. The stones have the arrogance to still glint, tantalizing, encased in the nanotech they melted over Mr. Stark's skin. Peter feels gutted alive, flayed and raw, but next to the pain he manages to feel the rage, and the second he lets himself go that far, suddenly the power crackling in the air is impossible to ignore. 

It comes from _them_ . It clings and swirls grotesquely around Mr. Stark’s body, and Peter _hates_ it, and he won’t give in. He’s not like Thanos, he doesn’t want any otherworldly power to tempt him to do the impossible—there must be another way, right? Any other way, to fix the obvious, unacceptable mistake that is the stillness of Mr. Stark’s eyes?

 _I don’t need you_ , he thinks as vividly as he can, even as hands wrap around his biceps and tug him to his feet. _You hear me? Don’t touch him ever again. I don’t want your help._

 _We have no master_ , they respond. _We give what we want to give, if we want to give it. Be grateful, child, we’re feeling magnanimous._

And then, only silence. 


End file.
